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Bay State high-school graduation rates rising

By Katie Lannan, State House News Service

Updated:
03/01/2017 09:49:42 AM EST

BOSTON -- The high school graduation rate in Massachusetts climbed slightly to 87.5 percent last school year, rising for the 10th consecutive year, while the annual dropout rate remained at 1.9 percent, education officials announced Tuesday.

The four-year graduation rate, measured among the 74,045 students who entered as ninth graders in 2012 or transferred into that class year, represents an increase of 0.2 percentage points from the previous year and an increase of 7.6 percentage points from the cohort of students entering in 2006, when the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) first began calculating rates.

"This continues to be very positive news overall, with some nuances within that statement, but progress over time has been very substantial statewide," Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester said at a Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meeting in Malden Tuesday morning.

The education department also highlighted four urban districts that have seen the sharpest decrease in their dropout rates over the past five years: Springfield, which had 448 fewer students drop out for a 57 percent decrease; Holyoke, which had 104 fewer students drop out for a 54 percent decrease; Lawrence, which had 150 fewer students drop out for a 51 percent decrease; and Brockton, which had 110 fewer students drop out for a 41 percent decrease.

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The graduation rate varies across different racial and ethnic groups and other student subgroups. DESE officials said gaps in graduation and dropout rates across different races have shrunk over time.

Black male students experienced the largest gains in their graduation rate, which rose from 72.8 percent to 75.7 percent, according to the department. The graduation rate for students with disabilities improved from 69.9 percent to 71.8 percent, marking the first time it has exceeded 70 percent.

The department identified "significant gaps" in graduation rates among major racial and ethnic subgroups, with a 20-point difference between the highest rate, for Asian students, and the lowest, for Hispanic students. The difference is 0.2 points smaller than it was in 2015.

Fewer than half as many students dropped out of school last year than in the 2006-2007 school year, when the annual dropout rate hit its high point of 3.8 percent. A total of 5,523 students dropped out in the 2015-2016 school year, compared to 11,436 in 2006 to 2007.

Rep. Alice Peisch, the House chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Education, said the decline to a 1.9 percent dropout rate shows "dramatic improvement" throughout the past decade.

"As long as the students are staying in school, we have the chance to see that they graduate," she told the News Service after a briefing that spotlighted "student-centered" education models. "When we lose them, we have lost that opportunity, so cutting the dropout rate in half I think is a significant improvement."

Peisch said programs that connect high school students with internships that match their interests and show a connection between academic improvement and future job opportunities can help keep kids in school. She said directing students toward innovation schools and other more flexible programs could help further boost the graduation rate.

"Any increase is good news, but on the other hand I think it points to the fact that we still have too many students that do not graduate in a timeframe that we generally expect," the Wellesley Democrat said.

Of the 2016 student cohort statewide, 5.7 percent of students were still in school after four years, 1.1 percent completed school without graduating -- such as those who earned a certificate of attainment, or students with special needs who reached the maximum age of 22 but did not graduate -- and less than 1 percent had earned a high school equivalency.

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